Is living life as a gay man REALLY the right thing to do?

depends what theyve left me in the will ... seriously my typeing aint bad yours is just better

 

So let me see if I understand this correctly. You want to find a (willing) lesbian, and have biological children with her. You want to raise children so they wouldn't "be a target" - which I guess would mean you live with the lesbian, but not the boyfriend. Because if you lived with the boyfriend and not the lesbian, then you'd pretty much be in the same position as two gay guys living together without the lesbian. So you're living with the lesbian and your kid(s). You go and do things with your boyfriend...well, presumably not at your place. Because if he came over a lot, people might figure things out. And I assume the lesbian's girlfriend couldn't come over much, either. Unless your boyfriend and her girlfriend were fake-married, too, and maybe they could have kids. But then you'd have to make sure your kids (and their kids) don't find out about the relationship between you and your boyfriend (and your lesbian wife and her girlfriend), or else they might tell other people who would make fun of them. Or you could tell them, but tell them that they must never tell anybody about it. It's probably best if you didn't interact with your boyfriend at all in either of your houses, then. But then again, you can't do it in public, because again, people would start talking about how you're "cheating on your wife". So perhaps you'd have to meet out of town, where nobody knows anybody. And then just hope your lesbian wife doesn't want to move to another area.

That doesn't sound easier at all. For you, the lesbian, the boyfriend, OR the kids.

Lex

 

I think I turned on some random episode of L word to see what it is like and I got something like that...
But it sounds like the Young and the Restless...only with gay people. lol

 

Mmm... I'm pretty sure it took longer because I've barely slept in three days and am trying to multitask anyway. But ok, I'll go with quality over quantity

 

Hey, if it makes you look better, why not go along with it? lol

 

Who is to say what normal is. Is normal just some standard Leave it to Beaver life style?

I mean what is normal? And who gets to set these normal standards?

I have a friend who had children with a man, they got divorced, and had three children. I’ve met her kids they’re bright, well behaved and sharp as tacks.

I don't buy into the whole perception of normal.

I think a loving gay couple that can provide what a child need, beats the living hell out of Britney Spears, Tom Cruse, and plenty of other straight shooters any day of the week.

 

I'm hoping my friend Charlie will come here and talk to you about this. He and his partner have adopted several children and have a beautiful life together.

http://www.emptyclosets.com/forum/member.php?u=1277

 

After reading this I really would love to comment on this. My name is not very important but I would like to give you some background on our life. I am with my "illegal" husband nineteen years this July 17th. We have five adopted kids. Our kids are 15, 11, 10, 10 and 7 years old. We also have a foster child who is the biological sibling of our three oldest kids. We adopted five kids to keep the siblings together. Our children are all high honor students that care very deeply for their community. All five excel in sports. They are well rounded kids that have many friends. Not once in the ten years we have been raising our family have we had a problem with school, friends or their parents. Our kids usually are the first to make a new child feel comfortable and befriend them.
Don't get me wrong, they are no angels, they love to fight with each other and make up. They do what any other brothers and sisters do.
Now the big question.....What is normal? If you ask our children if they "miss" having a mother they will answer you, they have only ever know two dads and never missed having what they never had.
I will tell you what was not normal for me though, doing four loads of laundry a day for the last ten years, packing five lunches, planning and packing for vacation for seven people. That was not normal for me but I got used to it pretty fast when I forgot one pair of girls dress shoes once and never heard the last of it!
If you met our kids you would not know they had two dads so they don't stick out I suppose they are as abnormal as the rest of human kind.
I would say that our kids are "normal" because never once were we ever ashamed or did we hide who were were. As they grew older they realized not only did they have two dads but they loved each other and were in a relationship. They never saw us "making out" as I would hope other parents don't do in front of their children. They did see us holding hands and sitting by each other because we are always together. We both own our own business and so we were able to make our own hours so we could watch every waking minute AND sleeping minute of our children growing up.
So, what is normal for one person I suppose is not always normal for another.
Our kids have been with us, most since birth. The only one that was not with us from birth was the one that was abused beyond what I will talk about on this site by a biological parent. That I can assure you was NOT normal. Nor should any child have to live with.
After saying all this I will leave you with this thought, most gay couples and single gay men and women that adopt, adopt children from foster care. Children I might add that have been abused and neglected by biological connections. Some come weak, addicted to drugs passed on from the birth mom, beaten, sexually abused the list goes on and on. Did you know that 92% of all foster children have been sexually molested while in foster care? Not by adults but by other children which they learned while in a birth home. That is a fact. There are 12, 972 children in foster care alone in NJ. Over 4000 of those children are legally free for adoption. So I have to say when someone does not believe a child should be with a gay couple I always ask myself how many children they have adopted if they care so much for normal for a child. I am in no way attacking just asking a question.
It took fourteen years before my husband and I had a commitment ceremony. What was not normal and we never broke down to do was Domestic partnership nor Civil Union. We would never teach our children to take anything other then what was equal. So normal is waiting to legally be able to marry. Normal is fighting for changes so we all can be equal. That is what is normal for our family. I cannot wait until we do not have to fight for legally protecting our family and legally getting married. I cannot wait to stop wasting so much time convincing others about the fact that our family is just as normal as any other family. Normal because we love each other, stand by each other, have family values, and moral values.
I want to share one more thing, we are very fortunate to be parents. But our children are never our own, nor is someone that has a child biologically. They are always their own person, we get the chance to help them grow but in the end they will leave and become adults and they are not possesions. Our children are just as much loved as if I had "made" them myself. I personally would not want to have children any other way then the way we did it. Adoption.

 

SideEffects, I think I'd just start by saying:

No two individuals have exactly the same lives, and no two individuals live life exactly the same way.

If you feel that it makes you happier living the way you described in your post, then what others think about it does not matter. After all it is your life.

Are there same-sex families out there? Sure there are! But whether or not it is for you is entirely up to you.

We can provide you with all our experiences, but we can't say that these experiences will work for you.

Do you want think is best, and if it doesn't work out as you would want it to, then walk a different path. And your friends, family, partner, or even support forums like these would help you through if you ever need it.

All the best!

 

Why would you choose to be with a lesbian? If you're going to go straight, find a hot heterosexual woman at least lol.

 

I think you're going to have a hard time finding a lesbian that wants to have sex with you.

But do whatever you want, because I'm not in a mood to start/continue a big debate about the way you're going to overcomplicate your life as well as the lives of your children and loved ones.

 

I'm actually astonished he hasn't been met with sheer hostility (though perhaps the mods are making sure of that). He got responses that definitly were full of disbeleife at what he was asking, maybe some hints of agression and then responded with definite aggression. He may have posted this in the Support and Advice forum, but I'm not convinced that's what he was looking for. This seems much more along the lines of a guy running into a mormon church and kissing his boyfriend and then wondering why they weren't being supportive.

Yeah, his original post by itself could be an ernest attempt to get advice and support. But his replies make it look like it was meant to stir confrontational messages. If you're looking for advice, your responses to other's replies aren't hostile and dismissive, they're argumentative and he hasn't offered a single argument since the original post. And he prooved in his other thread on homosexuality and religion that he knows how to make a thread for this section properly. This one just reeks of him trying to create trouble for no apparent reason. If it seems like people are jumping down his through like rabid mongeese, its because he deserves it.

 

I think people have done this before.
If you can find a lesbian who is willing to do this then why not.
It's not a typical family, but that's what straight people say about 2 same-sex-parented families, so i say go for it if it's what you really want.

 

what psychological and/or emotional damage comes from living a false life with a wife?
assuming they never find out: minimal/none ( based on other childhood factors)
they find out when they are young: at worst they'll be really confused and maybe be less trusting of others (not exactly horrible, lots of people have that from other things)
they find out when they are oldish/ready: they'll be upset that they were lied to but probs won't be scarred in anyway.

Also you can't tip toe around your own life worrying about everyone else's well being. Yeah you should look out for you kids but i don't see how at risk they'd really be.

 

Thanks Charlie! Awesome post. I did not know the statistics of kids being sexually molested in foster care. That is mind boggling. Here in Oregon the foster care system really encourages gays and lesbians to adopt. Lots of children need homes.

 

I'm sure there is a demonstrably damaging psychological effect on children who are lied to in such a massive way by their parents, but since I don't have the Sauce to back that up I won't push it.

I will, however, say that children are more perceptive than you'd think. Just because they don't have the knowledge to grasp the details of a relationship between two people doesn't mean they're oblivious to it; kids can pick up on the tiniest little thing. When my godbrother was seven years old, he started to refuse to change for PE: because he had somehow got a glance of, and understood the meaning of, his mum's self-harm scars - even though his parents had always taken the utmost care to keep him from being exposed to that, and certainly had never discussed it with him. One of my friends when I was in school experienced her parents' divorce when she was 16 - and had seen it coming since she was 10.

If you think that you can bring your children up so easily by lying to them their whole lives, then you're naive.
If you think that bringing up your children by lying to them is appropriate, then you should not be a parent.

The lie suggested by the OP is much less direct, but no less all-encompassing - a lie regarding the idea of marriage rather than regarding one particular marriage. The same effect would occur.

(I don't bloody care how long it took to type this!)

 

While I doubt you're actually looking for advice, in the off chance that you are here's my input.

What about single men between 30 and 50 scares you? Does it scare you that you could wind up single and middle-aged? (Not that 30 is middle-aged; it's still pretty young and at least in my experience below average age of marriage.)

Okay, there's a lot there. Let me see if I can recap it and verify I understand what you mean.

So you want to live openly. You don't want to pretend to be straight. You want to find a guy that you can love and live the rest of your life with. Your family, friends, co-workers, etc. will know that you are gay.

So you are going to have a boyfriend but for all intents and purposes (regardless of legal certification) someone that is your husband (in the sense that you love each other and want to spend the rest of your lives together). Then you want to find a lesbian woman who knows that you are gay and will marry you legally. You then want to have kids with this woman. You won't love this woman, it is strictly a platonic, legal arrangement.

You will live in separate homes. You will have separate friends. You for all intents and purposes have no ties to one another other than that you are legally married, have children, and a friendly relationship.

You will have kids through intercourse not in-vitro-fertilization. (These next statements are assumptions based on what it means to not be a target and the manners that you mean by target as well as what you mean by family and by devastated.) Your children will not be picked on for having two dads because they have a mom and a dad. (Even though presumably the mom has a girlfriend, the dad a boyfriend, they don't love each other, don't live together, but are in a highly unusual marriage situation.) The family (as in the legally married mother (the aforementioned willing lesbian) and father (you) and children (birthed by the married mother and father)) won't be devastated (traumatized by acts of family disunity) more so than on average (an assumption as to what "too" implied).

(I'm not entirely sure what it is that would be fake as you said everything would be disclosed. But I'll assume you mean the love between a married man and woman.) The only fake part of this arrangement is that you will not love the person you marry. You don't want to love a woman. You don't want to live with a woman. You want to live with a man. You want to love a man.

(Which society do you mean? There are many societies on this planet. The only information about which society you might live in that I've gathered from posts I've seen from you thus far is that you are in either an orthodox or conservative Jewish religion. But you're country, region, locality (i.e. rural vs urban), and age have not been disclosed as far as I've seen so what you mean by society is not clear.) You believe that this complex arrangement is the closest to society's acceptable terms for a relationship for fostering children that you can achieve.

What do you mean by "normally"? What you have just described is not by any stretch of the imagination considered even remotely close to "normal" in any part of the world that I know of.

I assume you mean kids created by your sperm. The following response after the next quote assume that is what you meant.

The alternative being what exactly? Adoption, surrogacy through in-vitro-fertilization, and not having kids at all? How are any of those selfish? And if none are then what alternatives did you mean that you did consider selfish? For the alternatives you didn't think of as selfish, why do you feel that they would not be fulfilling?





Now to recap.

1) You want to have kids.
2) You want to have kids who are genetically derived from you and whose genetic mother is also part of their lives.
3) You want your kids not to be bullied or picked on or have a disadvantageous life.
4) In order to fulfill this, you want to legally marry a lesbian to father your children but will act in no way shape or form as a wife to you. You will be in a committed relationship with another man and live separate from your children's mother who supposedly will be in a committed relationship with another woman.

In what way is having a dad who likes guys and a mom who likes girls who don't live together but only got married in order to have you in wedlock a situation that will elicit less teasing, bulling, etc. than having two dads? I can't think of anywhere where the situation you described would be considered a preferable situation than raising kids in a homosexual relationship. Basically, you're going to throw on top of the "gay" issue, a "sham marriage" and a defacto "divorce" issue. You want your kids to exist in a "normal" family? In what way has anything you described approached "normal" other than the kids being conceived through sex between a man and a woman (though even that act would not be "normal" in the sense that most kids created through heterosexual sex are created through sex where both parties want to have sex with each other for intimate reasons).

Later on you chastise The Enigma for not knowing what "motto" you were talking about when he said it originally. Well, you said motto first. And you didn't specify what motto meant. There is nothing in the part you quoted from The Enigma or in your reply to that quote that qualifies what motto meant. So in the future, get your facts right before you decide to criticize someone.

My best guess as to what motto meant here is "Don't live by other people's standards just to please them. Live and thank for yourself. You don't live to appease others.". But again it's not clear. It could easily be what ever you originally meant by "normally" and is quite confusing. What do you mean by "when it comes to parenting there obviously needs to be a father AND a mother"? Do you mean that parenting (the act of raising a child) requires a mother AND a father? Or do you mean that biologically, there must me a male and female parent in order to create a child? If the latter, then yes, I completely agree. While in theory a child could be created using DNA from two male parents, we do not currently have the technical experience to do so. We have the technology, and there are experiments being conducted to prove the theory, but there is no currently working system for creating a kid who is genetically descendant from two males. If you meant the former, then how do perfectly well adjusted, successful, happy people raised by grandparents, single parent, divorced parents, extended families, villages, orphanages, foster homes, adopted parents, siblings, polygamists, gay dads, lesbian moms, and even more complex systems that what you've described, exist?

If you true meant that you live by the motto "Don't live by other people's standards just to please them. Live and thank for yourself. You don't live to appease others." then why is a marriage between a man and a woman necessary to have a child? Isn't forcing yourself to follow such a "social norm" completely contrary to that very statement?

Why do you think it is not fair to the kid or easy to live with two dads? Later on you go to say:

How is being raised by two mothers better than two fathers? Why is two mothers acceptable but two fathers is not? How does two fathers make it not fair or not easy for the kid but two mothers doesn't? How does a "not real" marriage make things easier for the kids? The only time I've even read that divorce is beneficial to children is when the parents are in an abusive relationship and you're talking about something easily called divorce+ .

What do you mean by living a gay life? Is there something inherent to a gay life that is harmful to children? As far as I know a gay life only means that you are seeking a relationship with someone of the same sex. It means nothing else. It doesn't mean being an activist. It doesn't mean being promiscuous. It doesn't mean engaging in risky behavior. It doesn't mean partying every night. It only means that when it comes to love, it's with someone of the same sex instead of the opposite sex. I really hope you mean only loving someone of the same sex when you say gay life but I get the impression that you mean everything else that I just listed as not being it.

You are concerned that living life without social "norms" is a bad thing and yet you want to engage in this complicated mess of a family structure that is about as non-social-"norm" as you can get? It isn't the "right" thing to do, it is the right thing to do. Living a lie is the wrong thing to do. Period. There are very few absolutes in the world. "Living a lie is wrong" is one of those absolutes.

Why can't you see yourself happy at 40? What do you see that blocks you from being happy?

How does you having a hard time growing up and you being gay have anything to do with one another in the same sense that having two gay parents would cause having a hard time growing up. By your own words, you were the only one that knew you were gay. Any hard times you had growing up because of you being gay were of your own making since no one else knew. Any hard times your kids would have because their parents were gay would be caused by people who knew their parents were gay, not the kids themselves unless you're claiming that no one would know and they'd be the only ones to know.

You're Jewish as you stated in another thread. If your kids were to go to a predominately Christian school, would you convert to Christianity? Everyone else will know they're different because they're Jewish and their family is different because their Jewish. That would be unbearable ridicule right? What if you move? You and your kids willl definitely be different then. You won't be from the area. Everyone will know. I'm sure your kids won't ever be able to cope or be happy in their lives because they're different. What if you're kids wind up with red, blond, or grey hair. Most kids have brown and black hair. Are you going to dye their hair so they're more like the other kids and not different?

How do you KNOW kids raised by gay parents are disadvantaged? Were you? Is it personal experience? Or perhaps you know someone who was? Or surely you read some study that showed it right?










EDIT: Going over later posts, you did point out what you meant by motto in your post ridiculing The Engima. If you had just quoted the selection in the criticizing post there would have been no confusion. By adding in the question before it, you introducing ambiguity. And for reference, if you don't want to be met with hostility and utter contempt, don't start calling people trying to help you stupid. I guarantee if you continue to do that, you'll soon find that you're little "debates" as you call them, in which you're trying to "humor" us won't get any responses because people will just stop caring to try for you. Also ignorant is not an insult. It means you don't know something. Clearly if you had all the information you wouldn't be seeking advice right? And giving smart ass two line replies to points that paragraphs were spent on is hardly "enough attention". You are right though. "Gotta love hypocrisy" (And so there isn't confusion. That is me being both rude and indignant towards you.)

 

That is the exact same thing said to homosexual parents.